Not everything is worth your attention; a platitude, for sure, but have we structured your life to ensure that you do eliminate the burden of constantly having to vet whatever seeks our attention?
Consider dealing with people, for example, while it can be overwhelming if no filters are put in place, the interplay of time, place, and associated costs force both parties to reconsider the engagements. If we only had to deal with people, we should not be so concerned about filters, as to a large extent they are self-imposing.
However, the more valuable one becomes, the self-imposing filters become insufficient. It is for this reason that top executives and top government officials employ an army of personal and administrative assistants. It is also why there is an endless exploration of how to organize direct reports at every organizational level.
In this information age of ours, our success (in this case ability to access and process information) has made us top executives of ourselves, in charge of selling our attention. It is an unconventional situation, because the costs associated with our product are hard to perceive and it has never occurred to most of us that it should be actively managed.
In today’s world, it is safe to say that anyone who is not actively managing their attention is recording a very high cost of goods sold and operating with a significantly negative bottom line. To increase the quality of our lives, we must employ filters.
I like to call these filters diligent filters. A diligent filter is any adaptive system that is put in place to ensure that whatever eventually catches your attention is deserving of it. They can be processes/protocol, or people. To make a process/protocol diligent, it is sufficient to constantly review it, especially after every undeserving thing unsuspectingly makes its way through your protocol and after every deserving thing falls through the cracks.
It gets really tricky to keep the filter adaptive when it is a human filter. A simple way is to pay for that adaptiveness through some form of employment. Another way is to create meaningful relationships and join communities. The major limitations of these is that a lot of outsourcing comes with hidden compromises, and too much association can become an echo chamber.
A better, more sustainable filter is to seek the wisdom that allows for swift and effective judgement, and to develop the self-reliance that allows one to speak with candour and act with decisiveness. When appropriately developed, it becomes self-defeating to use this filter in insolation. One can significantly improve the quality of what their attention currency by seeking appropriate combinations.
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